In these crazy times of…who knows what, I am often thinking about how my students and their families will be affected by the actions and policies of the egotistic, self-absorbed, unqualified person who was just sworn in as president of the United States. How will their lives be impacted? Who will stick up for them? How will they resist? How can I support?

Of course I am not the only one who sees the madness of what we’re working with. One of my students just put it all front and center in an argumentative writing pre-assessment that they penned last week.

The piece gave me life. Even though it's accuracy is dark, it made me laugh out loud and reminded me that our youth know. They get it. They can see clearly how screwed we are as a nation with this person in one of our most powerful offices.

J’s writing speaks for itself. After a weekend of marching it was powerful to read this piece and know that even though we may be doomed, we are organized, we are powerful, and nothing is permanent.

I’m so grateful for my students. They keep me on my toes, keep me grounded and remind me everyday that our work as educators – educators who stick up for all of our students – is so important.

Shout out to J for giving their teacher some life on a rainy New York City Monday night.

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The text of J’s pre-assessment is in italics below. I appreciate their attempt at a counterclaim. We’ll have to work on that in this unit. :)

I think that America is doomed. Especially, with a new president, Donald J. Trump. I think that if more people have voted, Trump wouldn’t be president. America is kinda like a child of newly divorced parents, but his parent are fighting over it’s custody. But America kinda just wants to go with grandma. These are some reasons I think Donald J. Trump is going to be the worst president ever.

Donald J. Trump claims he is not racist. Question, if someone dislikes a race or nationality, what word would you use to describe him? Racist. Donald J. Trump has talked negatively about Mexicans and Muslims. “Mexicans are drug dealers.” “Muslims are terrorists.” Donald J. Trump also claims he will build a wall to keep Mexicans out. He claims that he will talk to them and make them build it and pay for it.

Another reason, Donald J. Trump will be one of the worst presidents is that he is very childish and rude. In some videos I’ve seen he is shown screaming at people to “Shut up” and some other things I cannot write.

Some people disagree with me because they might have the same views as Donald Trump.